The Mysterious Four-Dot Ellipsis in Star Wars

Why is there a four-dot ellip­sis in the Star Wars open­ing crawl?

So, here’s a source of many sleep­less nights:

Some time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, I noticed a strange four-dot ellip­sis in the open­ing crawl of Star Wars.

Did someone mess up, and then they just went with four dots?
Or was it inten­tion­al — if so: then what’s up with that?

Here’s the clas­sic open­ing sequence of Star Wars:

Then, at the end of the open­ing crawl, we see that mys­ter­i­ous four-dot ellipsis:

Why four dots?!

As a pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­nic­at­or and Swede with inter­na­tion­al cli­ents, I always strive to improve my English.

And, you know… it’s Star Wars.
I have to know, you know?

The Four Dots in Star Wars

In a movie fran­chise as metic­u­lously craf­ted as Star Wars, I could­n’t ima­gine a scen­ario where the cre­at­ors would add a fourth dot by mistake. 

And true to form: The four dot ellip­sis also occurs in all the oth­er Star Wars intros. ¹The stan­dalone pre­quel Star Wars: Rogue One did­n’t have the clas­sic tilted intro crawl, but it, too, starts with “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” and — voilà! — the four dots.

Well, almost.

There’s one excep­tion: the open­ing crawl in Star Wars — The Return of the Jedi:

The final para­graph of the open­ing crawl has only three dots. 

Now, the four dots can­’t all be typos, right? And if they aren’t — what about the three dots in The Return of the Jedi? Well, as in every oth­er Star Wars movie, there is still a four-dot ellip­sis at the very begin­ning of the movie:

Perplexing.

The Classic Three-Dot Ellipsis

Before diving deep­er into this mys­tery, let’s look at how to use the reg­u­lar three-dot ellip­sis. It can be used to indic­ate an unfin­ished sen­tence or thought: 

“I was going to…”

(Note: Since the three dots are in affin­ity with the phrase, there should­n’t be a space between the last word and the three-dot ellipsis.)

The three-dot ellip­sis can also be used to sig­nal that some­thing, per­haps omin­ous, is about to happen: 

“But the story did­n’t end there…”

Some style guides sug­gest that these types of punc­tu­ation marks should be used with spaces in between them: 

“But the story did­n’t end there. . .”

However, using spaces is more of a styl­ist­ic choice, albeit not very prac­tic­al in today’s digit­al age: this could res­ult in unwanted line breaks when using today’s word processors. 

Still, out­side of lit­er­ary uses, the three-dot ellip­sis is also used in form­al texts to indic­ate edit­or­i­al omis­sions. ²Some people use double-spaces as format­ting tools between sen­tences and first-line indent­a­tions, but unless you’re using a type­writer, it’s bet­ter to leave typo­graphy to the machines..

Original:

“Doctor Spin is a PR blog writ­ten and edited by Jerry Silfwer.”

With edit­or­i­al omission: 

“Doctor Spin is a PR blog … by Jerry Silfwer.”

The edited ver­sion still makes it a bit unclear; the only indic­a­tion that the ellip­sis was­n’t in the ori­gin­al text is that it has a space before and after. This is why many style guides recom­mend using par­en­thes­is for omissions: 

“Doctor Spin is a PR blog (…) by Jerry Silfwer.”

But what if the quoted text already con­tains these types of omis­sions? Again, some style guides recom­mend keep­ing the author’s omis­sions with par­en­thes­is (…) and using brack­ets for your omissions […].

Confusing?

Well, we have left reg­u­lat­ory ter­rain and entered the land of style. 

Personally, whenev­er I use the three-dot ellip­sis for omis­sions, I prefer using brack­ets for max­im­um clarity: 

“Doctor Spin is a PR blog […] by Jerry Silfwer.”

Not too com­plic­ated, I think.

So, what about the four-dot ellip­sis, then?

The Four-Dot Ellipsis Exists!

The four-dot ellip­sis exists, believe it or not.
Or it sort of exists.

If you use a three-dot ellip­sis (without par­en­theses or brack­ets) to remove words at the end of the sen­tence, it would the­or­et­ic­ally look like this: 

“Doctor Spin is a PR blog… . It was launched in 2002.”

It makes sense, right? Words at the end of the sen­tence have been omit­ted, but it also has to be appar­ent to the read­er that there’s punc­tu­ation before the fol­low­ing sentence. 

However, in use, the space between the first three and the last dot is a prob­lem. Because the dots rep­res­ent omit­ted words where a space would­n’t fol­low the final omit­ted word.

Hence, there’s no space: 

“Doctor Spin is a PR blog.… It was launched in 2002.”

Four dots in a row, go figure! 

Still, and this is worth men­tion­ing again, it’s not a “four dot ellip­sis” per se; it’s just a three-dot ellip­sis fol­lowed by “nor­mal” punc­tu­ation. Or vice versa.

Theoretically, you could also use brack­ets (or par­en­theses) to illus­trate the same thing: 

“Doctor Spin is a PR blog […]. It was launched in 2002.”

In my opin­ion, the brack­ets are much clear­er. They make it easi­er for any read­er to under­stand what’s going on.

So what about Star Wars, then?

The Star Wars Ellipsis Mystery

Suppose the four-dot ellip­sis in Star Wars is inten­tion­al, which it must be. In that case, those four dots rep­res­ent a three-dot ellip­sis, either omit­ting the rest of the sen­tence or fore­bod­ing some­thing omin­ous … and reg­u­lar punctuation: 

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away […].”

Or:

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. […]”

From an art dir­ect­or’s view­point, using par­en­thes­is or brack­ets would have giv­en each intro an unwanted touch of “aca­demia.” So, the four-dot ellip­sis intro used in all Star Wars movies is reas­on­able. Or, at least, not wrong.

But what about the four-dot ellip­sis end­ing the open­ing crawl of all reg­u­lar Star Wars movies? And what about the excep­tion of Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi?

Unlike the intro texts, all final open­ing crawl sen­tences seem to be fully com­pleted with no omit­ted words. But they also seem like sen­tences indic­at­ing that the story now con­tin­ues — which should call for a three-dot ellip­sis. Or should it? 

Well, you and I can­’t make that decision.
It’s ulti­mately the cre­at­or’s prerogative.

It’s a fic­ti­tious story, and the one who made it up has the final say, peri­od. (Pun inten­ded.) The open­ing crawls could be excerpts from a Star Wars lib­rary in some Jedi temple some­where. We can­not know for sure if those texts have con­tinu­ations or not.

But what about the three-dot ellip­sis in the open­ing crawl for Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi, then? Why is this ellip­sis break­ing the pat­tern in the two pre­vi­ous instal­ments, A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back?

Was that a mis­take, then?

The cre­at­ors could argue that that sen­tence had no omit­ted words com­pared to the “ori­gin­al source.” And, even though it was­n’t the final Star Wars movie, it was, at least at the time, the final chapter of the ori­gin­al Star Wars trilogy. 

Maybe noth­ing more had been “writ­ten down” in the fic­ti­tious Star Wars universe?

Maybe the saga’s timeline in Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi had, for lack of a bet­ter descrip­tion, caught up to the “present day”?

Did Flash Gordon inspire George Lucas?

According to for­ums and fan sites, George Lucas, the fath­er of the Star Wars fran­chise, was inspired by the open­ing crawl of Flash Gordon:

We can see how the cre­at­ors of the Flash Gordon open­ing crawl use a four-dot ellip­sis — even using a space between the final dot and the fol­low­ing three-dot ellip­sis, thus indic­at­ing that the final sen­tence is com­plete but that there is more text omit­ted from the “ori­gin­al source” of the text.

Maybe the four dots in Star Wars is a dis­creet hat tip from George Lucas to Flash Gordon? 

I sus­pect that the four-dot ellip­sis in Star Wars is, first and fore­most, an east­er egg, a hat-tip from George Lucas to Flash Gordon for steal­ing the idea of using an open­ing crawl to set the scene.

PR Resource: Storytelling Elements in Star Wars